This lesson shows you multiple ways to use Acrobat in a document review process, how to annotate a PDF file with the Acrobat commenting and markup tools, view, reply to, search, and summarize document comments, initiate a shared review and initiate live collaboration.

This lesson will take approximately 60 minutes to complete. Copy the Lesson09 folder onto your hard drive if you haven’t already done so.

Figure 9.1 Robust commenting tools and collaboration features in Acrobat keep review cycles efficient and make it easy for stakeholders to give feedback.

About the review process

There are several ways to use Acrobat in a document review process. No matter which method you use, the workflow contains some core elements: the review initiator invites participants and makes the document available to them, reviewers comment, and the initiator gathers and works with those comments.

You can share any PDF document by email, on a network server, or on a website, and ask individuals to comment on it using Adobe Reader, Acrobat Standard, or Acrobat Pro. If you post the document or email it manually, you’ll need to keep track of returned comments and merge them on your own. If you’re requesting feedback from only one or two other people, this might be the most efficient way for you to work. For most reviews, however, you can gather comments more effi-ciently using a managed review process. Additionally, in a shared review or live collaboration, reviewers can see and respond to each others’ comments.

When you initiate an email-based review in Acrobat, a wizard helps you send the PDF file as an email attachment, track responses, and manage the comments you receive. Anyone with Acrobat 6 or later can add comments to the PDF file. You can also enable reviewers using Adobe Reader 7 and later to add comments.

When you initiate a shared review in Acrobat, a wizard helps you post the PDF file to a network folder, WebDAV folder, SharePoint workspace, or Acrobat.com, a free, secure web-based service. Through the wizard, you email invitations to reviewers, who then access the shared document, add comments, and read others’ comments using Acrobat or Reader. You can set a deadline for the review, after which no reviewers can publish additional comments.

Using Acrobat, you can also initiate live collaboration, through which you hold a virtual meeting specifically connected to a single document. You or other participants can simultaneously move the document on all participants’ screens at once, so that you are all literally on the same page.